In a cover profile with posed photos and everything (highly coveted in places called Washington), the New York Times Magazine reports that, after only 321 days in office, Joe Biden, who was a senator when Barack Obama was only a sixth-grader, has already possibly become the second-most-powerful vice president in the nation's entire 85,469-day history.
You might be wondering who was the most powerful vice president in U.S. history.
No, not Hannibal Hamlin.
We hesitate to publish the name of the most powerful vice president in American history because Biden called him the most dangerous VP in American history and commenters here get so excited about him, one way or another, even though he's related to Obama.
Also, as is well-known by conspiracy theorists (you know who you are), since our corporate parent is a charter member of the MSM, we are (secretly) prohibited from saying anything positive about Hamlin's Grand Old Party or anything even slightly mocking about the current Democratic administration that has so successfully turned the U.S. economy around so quickly. And all, amazingly, without incurring new deficits or lobbyists. And only a few hundred billion in new taxes and cuts.
So we'll just say that Biden is the most powerful vice president in the last 321 days. You figure it out.
The New York Times Magazine, not widely known for understated satire, is only the latest of....
The arguments for and against the healthcare legislation pending in the House and Senate are well known. But what about the process that is sure to captivate Washington for many weeks to come?
It may sound wonky, but understanding the process is key to following the events about to unfold in the Capitol. We were reminded of this basic fact recently when Noam Levey, one of our colleagues in Washington, produced a handy guide to what was headlined “The long road ahead.” Long, indeed.
Now that the Senate has voted (60 to 39) to begin debate on its version of healthcare legislation, here are the likely next steps in the Senate. Levey's guide is more readable and useful than your old text from Civics 101. You might want to bookmark this one:
AMENDMENTS
Once debate begins on Senate bill, lawmakers from both parties will be allowed to offer amendments
When expected: Starting Nov. 30 through Christmas or beyond
Votes required: Subject to negotiation, with 60 likely for more contentious amendments
CLOTURE TO END DEBATE ON THE BILL
Required to end a Republican filibuster and move to a vote on the bill
When expected: Just before Christmas, though possibly later
Votes required: 60
ADOPTION OF THE BILL
Would send the Senate bill to a conference committee, where it would be reconciled with the House healthcare bill that passed Nov. 7.
When expected: Just before Christmas, though possibly later
Votes required: 51
CLOTURE TO END DEBATE ON CONFERENCE REPORT
Would end GOP filibuster of the conference report that combines the House and Senate healthcare bills
When expected: Sometime in January
Votes required: 60
FINAL PASSAGE
Assuming House approval, would send the legislation to President Obama for his signature
If you thought "Going Rogue" would be the end of Sarah Palin's written rants, you probably don't follow the former Alaskan governor's fan page on Facebook.
The Republican has been blogging like crazy recently with her 1.07 million Facebook fans. (See new video below of the campaign-like scenes.) And getting thousands of comments back.
In addition to pictures from her "Going Rogue" book tour -- of happy children, grinning U.S. troops and flags of the American variety -- Palin gives a more personal look behind her many interviews and individual visits with fans and customers.
According to a new industry sales report, her book is coming up on half a million copies sold in its first five days on the market, a sales rate of about 4,000 per hour around the clock. Which ought to keep her in moose chili a while.
Her Facebook page also has some touching photos of memorabilia that fans give her when buying the book. Plus, of course, the long lines of eager book-buyers at stores and malls along the way on her strategically planned 25-state tour.
Also behind-the-scenes looks at her unscheduled visit with the Rev. Billy Graham.
Her legions of Facebook fans are growing by a couple of dozen every few minutes. They grow each time you refresh the page.
In one recent post, the Republican calls Fox News' Sean Hannity "a great American." Oh, and an apology for leaving 100 fans at a book signing in Indiana.
But the main focus of her blog posts lately has been about Congress -- things like war spending and "Obamacare," her pet name for the healthcare bill.
Palin blasts the healthcare "scheme" for taxing everyone starting next year. The actual legislation, however, plans to ramp up taxes in 2011 and on a sliding scale, where richer residents are taxed more and the modestly wealthy get a 0.5% hike.
On Tuesday night, Palin was bothered over "liberal Congressional proposals" that would institute a tax to fund the war in Afghanistan. Palin supports the war and the troops but not the idea of paying for it with new taxes.
"With Congress and President Obama spending money on everything at breakneck speed, it’s interesting that they are only now getting nervous about ...
... spending," Palin writes, "but only when it comes to providing the necessary funds to complete our mission in Afghanistan."
This qualm about the government proposing taxes on war and nothing else comes less than a week after she complained about the government proposing taxes on healthcare.
The early-stage war tax proposal called the "Share the Sacrifice Act," which House Speaker Nancy Pelosi says she may support, would fund a U.S. troop escalation in Afghanistan that Rep. David Obey estimates will cost $1 trillion over 10 years. [Note: An earlier version of this post called Obey a senator.]
That would buy a lot of books.
(Update: Palin, whose father was her high school track coach, has now Twittered to followers that she's leaving the book promotion trail over the Thanksgiving holiday to travel to Kennewick, Wash., for a 5K Red Cross charity run with numerous relatives before a book appearance Sunday in nearby Richland.)
Like one of those Indiana Jones movies -- where each near-death experience is followed by some even more extraordinary feat of derring-do -- the tension only escalates now that Democrats have pushed their healthcare bill to the floor of the Senate.
No one is likely to feel more pressure over the next few weeks than Arkansas Democrat Blanche Lincoln, who waited until virtually the last-minute to announce her support for moving forward with debate -- giving giving Democrats the bare 60 votes needed to avoid a GOP filibuster.
But Lincoln, who faces a tough reelection fight, next year, made it clear her vote Saturday night doesn’t necessarily mean she’ll be there with fellow Democrats on final passage. It’s not pretty, the view from the fence where she sits.
As one longtime observer of Arkansas politics put it in Monday’s print story on Lincoln: "She's getting it from both sides.” Moveon.org and other liberal groups are beating her up for opposing the “public option.” Republicans are beating her up for, well, being a Democrat up for reelection.
During a recent interview, Lincoln talked at length about her political situation, the difficulties of running for reelection in 2010 -- at the midterm of President Obama’s first term, historically a time the White House party loses congressional seats -- and what she would like to see in healthcare legislation.
Lincoln sat the end of a long conference table, in what might have once been the parlor of the red-brick Victorian home that serves as her state headquarters. In the background the telephones rang incessantly.
--On healthcare as an all-consuming matter: “I think by far the biggest issue on people’s minds is the economy. And I think until we do something with healthcare it’s going to suck a lot of out of air out of Washington, when we really need to be focused on the economy and job creation. … Healthcare’s a part of that, but it’s not all there is.”
Lincoln acknowledged a desire to finish up with healthcare, but not just for the sake of pushing the issue off the table: “It’s not as if we just want to do it and get rid of it. … We want to accomplish a greater value in our healthcare dollars, a greater efficiency in our healthcare delivery system.”
--On the so-called “trigger,” that would introduce a public option if insurance companies fail to enact reforms on their own: “I don’t have a problem looking at making sure there’s more pressure on the private industry to be able to provide more options and that hammer -- I prefer to call it a hammer. … There are going to be other options [in] the marketplace. Not necessarily a government-funded option, but nonprofit, perhaps.”
--On the difficult of running in 2010: “I ran for reelection in 1994. Any time you run in the midterm of a new administration, it’s going be this way. … People's expectations have been heightened. You're the first thing between those expectations and results, so it's going to be a tough year. [Republicans] are going to seize that opportunity.”
--On criticism she’s being wishy-washy, or indecisive as the debate grinds on: “People think you’re supposed to be for or against healthcare reform. Well, it depends what’s in there.”
ABC This Week with George Stephanopoulos: Sens. Tom Coburn (R-Okla.) and Ben Nelson (D-Neb.), Reps.
Marsha Blackburn (R-Tenn.) and Debbie Wasserman Schultz (D-Fla.), and a
round table with ABC's George Will, Liz Cheney,
Aspen Institute's Walter Isaacson and Robert Reich.
Bloomberg Political Capital with Al Hunt: Sen. Carl Levin (D-Mich.).
CBS Face the Nation with Bob Schieffer: Sens. Jon Kyl (R-Ariz.), Charles Schumer (D-N.Y.) and CBS medical correspondent Dr. Jennifer Ashton.CNN GPS with Fareed Zakaria: Indian Prime Minister Manmohan Singh and Newsweek's Maziar Bahari.
CNN State of the Union with John King: Sens. Sherrod Brown (D-Ohio), Mitch McConnell
(R-Ky.), CNN's Mary Matalin and James Carville, California Republican
Senate candidate and former Hewlett-Packard Chief Executive Carly Fiorina.
Fox News Sunday with Chris Wallace: Sens. Lamar Alexander (R-Tenn.), Kit Bond (R-Mo.), Debbie Stabenow (D-Mich.) and Arlen Specter (D-Pa.) with Club for Growth's Chris Chocola and Dr. Bernadine Healy, ex-director of National Institutes of Health; roundtable of Fox News' Brit Hume, Bill Kristol of the Weekly Standard and NPR's Mara Liasson.
NBC Meet the Press with David Gregory: Sens. Dianne Feinstein (D-Calif.),
Kay Bailey Hutchison (R-Texas), Joe Lieberman (I-Ct.), Dick Durbin
(D-Ill.), Race for the Cure's Nancy Brinker and NBC's Chief Medical
Editor Dr. Nancy Snyderman.
Weekly Remarks by President Obama, as provided by the White House
Hi. I’m recording this message from Seoul, South Korea, as I finish up my first presidential trip to Asia. As we emerge from the worst recession in generations, there is nothing more important than to do everything we can to get our economy moving again and put Americans back to work, and I will go anywhere to pursue that goal.
That’s one of the main reasons I took this trip. Asia is a region where we now buy more goods and do more trade with than any other place in the world – commerce that supports millions of jobs back home. It’s also a place where the risk of a nuclear arms race threatens our security, and where extremists plan attacks on America’s soil. And since this region includes some of the fastest-growing nations, there can be no solution to the challenge of climate change without the cooperation of the Asia Pacific.
With this in mind, I traveled to Asia to open a new era of American engagement. We made....
The Senate Ethics Committee admonished Sen. Roland Burris today for being "less than candid" about his contacts with impeached Gov. Rod Blagojevich in the months before Burris' appointment to the Senate.
In a letter to the Illinois Democrat, the ethics panel said it "found that you should have known that you were providing incorrect, inconsistent, misleading or incomplete information" during its investigation into whether Burris had been truthful about his contacts with Blagojevich associates.
The panel said, however, that it "did not find that the evidence before it supported any actionable violations of law."
The latest version of the healthcare bill may have to be airlifted from the Senate floor. It weighs in at a whopping 2,074 pages.
The House's version was certainly large at 1,990 pages, but this new one adds some hefty love handles. The table of contents alone takes up 14 pages.
As Politico noted, it could take as much as 48 hours, by some accounts, for someone to read the bill in its entirety.
That got us thinking. What else could these politicians be doing in the time it would take to read this cinder block of legislation -- because we know each and every one of them will read every last word of it, right?
5. Watch the last three seasons of "ER": For some perspective on what it's like to work in healthcare (or what it's like to be an actor on a series that wouldn't die), you could watch the last few seasons of "ER." You may be the first person ever to do so.
4. Take a motorboat from Alaska to Russia: Sarah Palin may be able to see Russia from her window (but probably not). However, it'll take about two full days to get there with a top-of-the-line motorboat. Trips like these make us wish for offshore drilling so we can make a pit stop along the way.
3. Read the Bible one and a half times: This one depends on your version of the Bible, but many prints are in the neighborhood of 1,200 pages -- that includes both the Old and New Testaments.
2. Accrue enough radio experience to host a national talk show: In Glenn Beck's "The Real America," a 2005 book by the political pundit, he writes, "After doing a total of maybe 40 hours of talk radio, I was asked to host a national show."
1. Watch 12 episodes of "Glenn Beck," 21 episodes of "The O'Reilly Factor" and a full week's worth of "The Rush Limbaugh Show:" That prescription of nonstop ranting should ensure you will vehemently hate the healthcare bill without ever reading a word of it.
Photo: The House version of the healthcare bill on display this month, courtesy of Republican Reps. Peter Hoekstra of Michigan, left, and Steve King of Iowa. Credit: Associated Press
As The Ticket reported earlier today in this space, Atty. Gen. Eric Holder was on the Senate Judiciary Committee hot seat defending his decision to bring the alleged 9/11 terrorist masterminds onto U.S. soil for civilian trials instead of keeping them far away in Guantanamo Bay for a military tribunal.
Alabama Republican Sen. Jeff Sessions, himself a former federal prosecutor, says he's amazed at Holder's simplicity claim and remains unconvinced that such a move, which could make New York City a target for potential new attack, makes any legal sense whatsoever.
Speaking of military tribunals, we went back into the video archives and found this C-SPAN tape below. Holder might want to watch it.
It contains his boss, Barack Obama, a brief member of that same Senate, in 2006 stating that a military tribunal was a perfectly fine way of handling such dangerous individuals asKhalid Shaikh Mohammed.
Obama said the fight against terrorism was "an extraordinarily difficult war" where terrorists could plot undetected from within our own borders.
The freshman Illinois senator was defending a legislative amendment and pointed out that a military tribunal for Mohammed seemed just fine to him.
"The irony of the underlying bill as it's written is that someone like Khalid Shaikh Mohammed is going to get basically a full military trial with all the bells and whistles. He's gonna have counsel. He's gonna be able to present evidence to rebut the government's case.... I think we will convict him. And I think justice will be carried out."
Obama, meanwhile, continued his journeys around Asia and told....
...inquiring reporters that he has never been closer to a strategic decision on what to do next about the deteriorating military situation in Afghanistan.
He also confirmed to Fox News' Major Garrett that the Guantanamo Bay detention facility would not, in fact, be closed by the end of next month as the new president had promised on his first day in office. The latest target is now sometime next year.
In late August the Democratic president received the recommendations of the commanding general in Afghanistan, involving the addition of more U.S. troops to the 68,000 already on the ground from Obama's first troop surge last March.
The general's recommendations reportedly also said that allies had about one year left to save the strategic situation there. Nearly a quarter of that year have passed in deliberations. As The Ticket reported here earlier today, an angry Obama has said that leaks of such contents are firing offenses.
Obama says it might be a few more weeks before he makes his final decision, but that when he did the American people would be clear about it and what his goals were.
As we reported here Tuesday, new polls indicate the American people have moved further along in their decision-making process about the war than the president. And their emerging decision appears to be that the eight-year conflict wasn't and isn't worth the cost.
As the fight over a healthcare bill moves from the House to the Senate, abortion rights groups are rallying to make sure the Senate's version does not contain antiabortion language approved by the House.
After a pitched, months-long battle and a successful lobbying effort by the country's Catholic bishops, the House's narrowly passed version would make it impossible for many women to purchase health insurance that covers abortion.
The Stupak-Pitts amendment says health plans purchased with the help of government money cannot include abortion coverage. Low-income women using federal subsidies, even small ones, to buy heath insurance would not be able to buy plans that cover abortion. Abortion foes contend that this is simply an extension of existing law, which for 30 years has prohibited the use of federal money for most abortions.
But supporters of abortion rights say Stupak-Pitts is more restrictive than current federal law. If the country ends up with a public option, Stupak-Pitts would prevent any of those plans from offering abortion coverage, which means a woman using her own money to purchase a plan through the (presumably less expensive) public option would not be able to buy a plan that covers abortion. Also, they claim, insurers would have less incentive to offer abortion coverage.
Such restrictions, say abortion rights groups, are unacceptable since abortion is a legal medical procedure.
This week, the Center for Reproductive Rights unveiled a new campaign, "Abortion Coverage is No Joke." At a press conference in Washington, Nancy Northup, the group's president, introduced a woman whose insurance company would not pay for an abortion even though her fetus was diagnosed with a fatal abnormality. Not exactly stand-up material, but check out this video, which will play for a week on cable in the DC area:
Meanwhile, 20 House Democrats who voted for Stupak-Pitts are the subject of a new Internet petition. All 20 are identified by both Planned Parenthood and National Right to Life rankings as either solidly in favor of abortion rights, or nominally so, and some are believed by abortion supporters to have "buyer's remorse" over the restrictive amendment they voted for.
For every signature, Credo (a division of Working Assets, the telecommunications company that donates a portion of its profits to progressive causes), will send a coat-hanger, that hoary symbol of the back-alley abortion, to the 20. So far, according to the petition's website, more than 113,000 hangers have been sent.
